The Story of a Settee

Once there was a girl named Kristin who was moving into her first apartment on raucous Langdon Street. It was right across the house from the Alpha Chi Omega house, which was the house she really wanted to pledge as a freshman and which she likely would have deactivated from just as she did the Gamma Phi Betas at the end of her junior year. I think maybe sorority life was just not for her. She made some great friends there though, but she was planning to move in with her best friend Sarah who she had known since kindergarten in Miss Sweet's class.

Living together didn't exactly work out, but when Sarah was home from communing with the Rainbow Gathering, they still spent time together often in the living room at 131 Langdon Street. This settee was a prominent piece in the big, airy room. It came from Kristin's Grandma Rose and joined Sarah's plush orange two-seater, 70s number that she left despite the fact she never stayed. It was quaint. It was eclectic. It was lonely.

Change was looming, decisions were mounting and while it was exciting, it was also a time of trial. Come spring, Kristin graduated and left Madison with her settee. Sarah stayed to finish her degree. She'd lost academic time traveling with the Dead Heads. They lost touch.

It wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last. The friends spent most of elementary school astray only to reconnect in high school. They would cross paths again when Sarah was pregnant with her twin girls and settling down. Then again when they celebrated their 10 year SHS reunion. After Kristin's mom passed. There were always a flurry of confessions, amends, and  promises. There was also a sad acceptance that they had neglected a special bond. Over the years, it became clear that they were powerfully connected in ways that transcended the explainable: reaching out or plain running into one another at uncanny times.

So 43 years after Kristin and Sarah first met, and 27 years after 131 Langdon, Kristin snaps a picture of the settee at her Grandma Rose's estate sale and she forwards it to Sarah. Sarah recognizes it and also the significance of receiving it on a day filled with packing up her girls for a fast approaching move to college. They both know it to be a universe moment, and they're both listening because they don't believe in coincidence or happenstance.